key aspects of Stuart Blanch’s work

Among the many benefits of Blanch's work to church and society the most important was his ability to reveal the grounds for his confidence in the Bible and the means of interpreting its message for his day. It was an ability which led to a rediscovery of the Bible for many people culturally estranged from it, opened up a view the Bible as itself the fruit of an historical interactivity between faith and culture, provided a frame of reference which gave confidence to Christians thinking about the relevance of their faith to contemporary society.

The intellectual and moral rigour of his quest for faith was fulfilled in an existential encounter with Christ during a sustained reading of the Gospels. His consequent wish to understand Christ led him to explore the cultural background of Jesus of Nazareth through intensive study of the Old Testament. Within the Jewish canon he found the interactivity of the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings to be a principle of its composition. This led him to see the Old Testament as a paradigm of God's work in human history, one therefore applicable in every age.

Prominent in his discoveries was the view of the Torah, the Law of God, as a loving gift, as itself “good news” in the potential anarchy of an amoral world, providing a proven and trustworthy basis and guide for the spirit and substance of ethical decision.

He read the New Testament as a fulfilment and interpretation of the Old Testament, the two testaments forming one book, Jesus himself personally expressive of Law, Prophets and Writings, and making possible a necessary shift in human motivation through personal encounter in every age.

This enabled him to view contemporary social and cultural constructs from a biblical standpoint and see signs of the times in their underlying human causation. This made him a prophetic commentator. He was able to bring the same vision to bear upon the more hidden world of contemporary fiction (in all its forms) and introduce the Bible as a creative partner for its better understanding. In this way he emphasised the place of the Bible in 20th century non-theistic intellectual culture.

His achievement was to show the relevance of the Bible both to humanity's inner subjectivity and also to the spirit of its social structures. His method was employ hermeneutical method as the basis both of preaching and lifestyle, the two belonging together.